when you have eliminated the impossible
by speos
Summary: Vampires exist, and Heiji can prove it. (aka, that time Heiji believed in magic.) (aka, Twilight: the Remix.) [pre-slash, Hei/Shin]
1. Chapter 1

A/N: wow, this is the first time i've been here in a long time... but mostly thats thanks to one absolutely crazy InfinityIllusion, who's the enabler of the century. love ya 3

characters are not mine, yada yada yada

let's get this show on the road

warnings: bad dialogue, some swearing, dead people but it's detective conan so they're peripheral

EDIT 3/21/16; now that the second part's going to be up in a couple seconds, i feel i should add-this whole thing is actually pre-slash, although if you desire it can be read as bromance. bromance, pre-slash, what's the dif, amirite?

* * *

Heiji was on the street beat that night again.

"Don't work yourself too hard, Hattori-kun, and sleep early once in a while," the police chief liked to say, but the reality was, that wasn't really an option. There was only one Genius High School Detective in all of Western Japan (around Tokyo there was that Hakuba guy, but he spent most his time wrapped up in Kaito Kid cases), and that was Heiji. Just one of him to hundreds and hundreds of unsolved cases.

In his first week Heiji sat down in the cold case room and went over the cases one by one and shelled out the ones he thought could be solved if he went over the evidence again. One sleepless month later and the police department's cold case room was two-thirds empty.

But it wasn't enough. There was still more work to be done, so he did it. He was a 'Special Consultant,' Sherlock Holmes style, which should have been awesome, except Sir Doyle never wrote about how exhausting it was to be shipped from police department to police department, how the most sleep he ever got were the snatches of hours on the train, how he never had time to respond to Kazuha's emails or texts and most contact he had with her and his other friends was falling asleep on the line as they told him about their lives.

Someone had to do it.

Heiji was on the beat this time for a series of what looked to be serial murders. Heiji expected to be done by morning. Serial murders were always gruesome, but the killers were more likely disorganized than organized, and thus easy to track. Witnesses were easy, too. Everyone remembers that one guy who acts uncommonly creepy.

Easiest, though, about serial killers, was that they always had to leave some kind of calling card. Unless they were some kind of home-grown terrorist group in which case they kill indiscriminately, they'll have a victim type and some modus operandi that made them easy to identify. In this case, the victims were completely drained of blood, and the only external wounds were two pinpricks on the wrist of every victim. Not a single trace of spilt blood was found at the scene, nor, as Heiji found, donated at any blood banks (curiously they had been _missing_ blood bags), found in the water supply, in the river, or any other place blood might be disposed. Not a single store in the area had records of large amounts of Tupperware bought or stolen. Heiji couldn't think of a single trick that could pull it off, which had never happened to him before in his life.

So obviously it could only be vampires.

The police chief had laughed. "Take the night off," he had said, slapping Heiji on the back so hard he almost slammed into the wall.

Except Heiji was definitely not crazy. See, unlike a certain Hakuba, Heiji believed "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?" Thank you, Sherlock Holmes. Since it wasn't possible for a human to carry out these murders, it was obviously a vampire. Honestly, proving vampires existed would be easier than to prove these murders were carried out by a person, or a group of people, even—unless, the entire city was in on the murders, which was statistically less likely than a vampire existing.

Which was why he was hitting up the sites of the murders in the hopes that the vampire would be back. It'd be best if he could get his questions answered directly.

But obviously it'd be foolish to expect a vampire to just show itself when he was tromping around, which was why he had a plan.

Heiji cupped his hands around his mouth. "Hey, vampire, I know you're out here!"

He's been shouting at every crime scene. Someone's got to answer at one of them.

No answer.

Disappointed, Heiji turned away and was about to leave when he saw something rustle at the corner of his eye. Without hesitating he pounced, crashing into whatever it was. It felt like a solid wall playing dress-up in a blazer.

"Oi, dude, what are you _doing_?"

Heiji stumbled backwards, but smoothly drew his shinai and leveled it at the creature. "Reveal yourself, vampire."

"What, wait, _what?_ Oh my god, are you _serious_?"

Two white hands emerged into the streetlight first, followed by a pale face. The vampire was a young man, probably around Heiji's age when he was turned, with dark hair and blue eyes, and, as expected, uncommonly white skin. He was dressed in a blue blazer and semi-professional slacks. "Hey, are you lost? Do you need help?" he said, hands still in the air.

Heiji rolled his eyes. "I don't need help; I'm the Great Detective of Japan," he said.

The vampire's eyes lit up. "Oh, great, I'm Kudo Shinichi; are you investigating this case, because I've hit a few blocks myself—"

Heiji jabbed his shinai at Kudo to make him shut up. "You know about this case too? Then you are investigating this case from the inside?"

Kudo squinted at him. "Uh, it's been all over the news—"

"Look here, vampire, it's no use trying to hide your identity. I'm onto you. Tell me what you know about your fallen comrade."

"Oh my god, are you for real? Are you seriously the Great Detective of Japan? _Vampires don't exist_."

Heiji hated talking to plebeians. "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable…"

"Must be the truth, I know," Kudo finished for him. "But _vampires_ should have been the _first_ thing you crossed off on your list. Idiot."

"What has not been disproven cannot be impossible," Heiji reminded, and with a quick flick of the wrist, threw the small bag he had been hiding in his sleeve at Kudo.

"Argh, what the hell!" Kudo flinched out of the way, but in his motion to duck, the back of his left hand brushed against the bag. "Jesus!" Kudo snapped his hand back up, but it was too late. The back of his hand began to smoke and Heiji's eyes glinted with triumph. "Why do you not just _let up_! Vampires _don't exist_."

Heiji tossed him a look that asked who he thought he was fooling, and Kudo sighed.

Keeping his shinai's business end pointed at Kudo, who was now cowering on the ground holding still smoking hand to his chest, Heiji began to move towards the bag, circling around Kudo. "I can't believe you didn't expect me to do my homework! Arrogance will be your undoing, you know."

Mashing his face into his palm, Kudo grumbled, "I can't believe this little brat isn't dead yet."

"So what was it?" Heiji said, scooping the bag up from the ground. "The garlic? The silver cross? The holy water?"

Kudo glared. "None of those, moron. _Suppose_ vampires exist. Then what? They're the undead—something that is both dead and alive at the same time, so what do you suppose they fear? Not death. Not life. They fear what's in-between—spirit. What's in that stupid bag of yours that has spirit attached to it?"

Heiji snapped his fingers. "The cross then."

Still wincing slightly, Kudo stood up on wobbly feet. "It's not just the symbol for Christianity. It's anything that involves spirit—usually that's religion, although it's ethnocentric to even think that just _one_ culture's chosen religion is the end-all-be-all—"

"Are you _still_ trying to say there's no vampires, vamp?" Heiji interrupted with a smirk.

Kudo growled. "There's no such thing—"

Heiji mimed throwing the bag at Kudo's head, and Kudo flinched.

"So what are you even doing back here?" Heiji continued. "Come back to gloat, come back to relive your crimes?"

" _No_!" Kudo shouted, frustrated. "I'm here to _solve_ them. I thought this looked suspiciously like a vampire's work too, and wanted to check it out."

Heiji arched an eyebrow.

Kudo threw up his hands. "What? You need proof?"

Heiji did, but now that he had the vampire at his mercy he wasn't entirely certain what kind of proof he could get. Unless… "Show me your fangs," he said.

"What?"

"Show me your fangs," Heiji repeated, sheathing his shinai crowding Kudo up against the alley wall.

"I don't have—"

Heiji dangled the pouch in front of Kudo's eyes.

"Jesus Christ," Kudo swore, and with a soft _snick_ , two long, sharp fangs rolled out of his mouth like a snake.

Ah, sweet, delicious proof.

Kudo observed him closely from under half-lidded eyes. "You bluffed," he accused.

"Called it," Heiji said smugly. "Well, you don't bluff when you can't at least pretend you can't make good on your threats. But honestly, you know what gave you away?" he said as he poked and prodded at Kudo's fangs. It looked like once the vampire extended them, they locked into place just like any other teeth. He removed his cap and tried to use a fang to poke a hole in it. Aha—as expected, the fang went easily through the fabric, but not the cardboard rim.

"Whfph ah yough douphin—" Kudo protested.

Heiji ignored him. "When you told me the weakness of vampires. While spiritual stuff _sounds_ appealing, sure, I'd already proposed the Christian cross, and you, reflexively, said that's wrong, before making up some bullshit answer that points to the clichéd Christian cross as the real reason. You lie well, vamp, but not well enough."

"So what? You gonna kill me?" Kudo snarled, eyes flashing. "Some detective you are. Jumping to conclusions, assuming things without any _proof_ —"

"Oh, I have proof."

Kudo shrank back immediately, withdrawing his fangs. "What?"

Heiji released him and stepped back a few paces. "See, there are fang-holes in the bodies of each victim. We studied the cells around each puncture wound and found that only the most immediate cells around the wound were harmed. It was a ridiculously clean wound. That means whatever punctured the victim's wrist—"

"Had to have been extremely sharp," Kudo realized. "But I've been around for a long time, and I've been drinking out of blood bags—"

"Aha," Heiji said.

"—So when you tried to rip my teeth out with the brim of your hat…"

"I was testing how sharp they were," Heiji confirmed. "Anything sharp enough to make clean cuts like that should be sharp enough to cut straight through the cardboard in my hat."

"What if I didn't use my teeth?" Kudo said. "I could have used a sharp knife, or a needle."

"The only thing that could have made a hole like that would probably be a pretty thick needle, not a sharp knife. Needles that thick aren't very sharp. And, it's more than likely you would have left some trace of blood on the crime scene—but there aren't any," Heiji explained.

"Exactly," Kudo said.

They shared a look of smug satisfaction, basking in the glory of kindred spirits.

"Then you're point on this case?" Kudo said, bringing them bock back to reality.

Heiji nodded. "Yeah."

"I realize I'm in no position to ask for a favor but…" Kudo trailed off, biting his lower lip uncertainly.

Heiji broke into a wide smile and slung an arm around Kudo's neck. "Yeah, I'll bring you in as a consultant. I think you've proven your worth here tonight, plus it'll be good to have someone on the inside. What should I call you?"

"Just say I'm a consulting detective. I've worked with the police before a few times. Kudo Shinichi," Kudo said.

Heiji side-eyed him. "I won't insult your intelligence by asking if you have papers, so don't forget to bring those in. Drop by the station tomorrow morning and I'll bring ya in. You, uh, got a place to go for the night?"

Kudo laughed. It sounded like a treebranch snapping off a tree in the middle of winter from high winds. "Yeah, yeah, I can take care of myself. Look forward to working with you," he said, ducking out from under Heiji's arm and running off into the night. Heiji thought he saw a tree rustle as Kudo disappeared.

"Sure."

Heiji looked up into the sky. All in all, it had been a very productive night. He had proved vampires exist, _and_ gained an ally in his investigation. Kudo Shinichi had proven to possess a very sharp mind.

He grinned. This case would be a lot of fun.

* * *

and done! come talk to me, please review; idk somehow make contact. its like aliens.


	2. Chapter 2

a/n: aaaand we're back for the second installment of 'let's see how many twilight references i can make in as many words'! warnings, since i know the first chapter wasn't all that gay-this second bit gets significantly more gay. it's still pre-slash, but it gets more gay. if you aint about that life, then... yeah. you can really still read this as a bromance though, if you want.

* * *

Heiji burst out laughing when he saw Kudo milling by the police station the next morning. "I completely forgot about that!" he said.

Kudo glared at him from under his blindingly white umbrella. Despite the bright sunshine, he took care to cover himself entirely, and what he couldn't cover without looking strange, he hid in the shadows of his umbrella.

"Oh my god, and you can't sleep—I've _completely_ forgotten." Shaking with suppressed sympathetic laughter, Heiji pat Kudo's shoulder. "You gonna be okay?"

"It's fine." Kudo shook himself free. "I can live in the daytime. You gonna introduce me to your chief or what? We're burning daylight here."

"I love irony," Heiji said, opening the door. "After you."

~0~

The police chief was amenable to Kudo consulting—apparently Kudo had called in a few tips before—and the two set off to crack the case.

"What if it was a vampire squirrel?" Heiji said. "Wouldn't that be funny?"

A vein in Kudo's face ticked. "It's _not_ a vampire squirrel. There's no such thing as vampire squirrels."

"Doesn't the sound of denial sound familiar to you? It sure sounds familiar to me. Veins in your face shouldn't pump blood, but look, there one is." Heiji poked at it.

"You are incredibly annoying," Kudo said, swatting at Heiji's hand.

"I'm brilliant," Heiji said.

"That's even worse."

~0~

It was a vampire squirrel.

They had tracked the thing to some warehouse down by the docks because Kudo was _convinced_ it was the vampire mafia, but when they had opened the doors they found a small nest, placed dead center in the middle of the warehouse.

Heiji punched the air and whooped before telling Kudo to bite his dust, even as Kudo pushed him out of the way of the murderous vampire squirrel that had leapt for his head, simultaneously drawing Heiji's shinai from its case and inflating the soccer ball he carried around with him.

"That is one fat squirrel," Heiji observed as Kudo struggled to detach the squirrel from his arm.

"It fed too often," Kudo said between grit teeth. "It's bloated. It doesn't even _need_ that much human blood but it doesn't know to be sated."

Heiji whistled in wonderment. "I wonder how it came to be."

"Someone must have drained the squirrel dry," Kudo grunted, in between swinging at the squirrel with Heiji's shinai and dodging fearsome squirrel attacks. "That's the only way—"

"Oh, that kind of makes sense, too," Heiji reflected, spinning Kudo's inflatable soccer ball on his finger. "It explains the myths of why you guys are so hungry after you've woken up, and it explains the death." Heiji shrugged. "Still, there's a lot of research to be done. Say, it wouldn't be that you guys have regenerative telomeres in your blood, would it? Passed down from vamp to vamp."

"Less sciencing, more aiming!" Kudo growled.

Heiji tilted his head to the side. "Aren't you guys supposed to have super strength or something?"

"Stop reading harlequin romance novels!"

"I don't read them!" Heiji protested, dropping the soccer ball to the floor. "Kazuha reads them and tells me all about them!"

"Just kick!"

Heiji did as told, aiming the soccer ball as hard as he could at Kudo. He trusted Kudo would know what to do with the projectile.

What he didn't count on was the squirrel latching onto Kudo's face, so what would have been Kudo heading the ball turned into Kudo taking one to the face, squishing the squirrel between his face and the ball. Heiji heard the squirrel's spine crack. Or possibly that was Kudo's nose.

"You're under arrest!" Heiji announced, scooping the squirrel up from the ground where it lay twitching and snapping tiny squirrel handcuffs on the squirrel's four paws.

Kudo stared as he pinched his nose back into shape. "Are you _joking_? You can't arrest a squirrel!"

"Vampire," Heiji reminded.

Kudo sputtered. "Yes, but that's not—you can't—did you _make_ those? Did you _know_ it was gonna be a vampire squirrel?"

Heiji grinned. "I made a series of educated guesses, same as you."

"I absolutely hate you," Kudo said, stomping out of the warehouse.

"Aww, Kudo, don't be mad just 'cause I'm the better man! Being a sore vampire isn't good for your health, you know," Heiji needled, trotting on Kudo's heels.

"Being around _you_ isn't good for my health," Kudo muttered, shouldering his umbrella. "So?" he said, turning to face Heiji entirely. "How are you gonna tell the police about… _that_?" He jerked his chin distastefully at the squirrel.

Heiji hummed thoughtfully. "I guess I can't," he said, swinging the angrily chittering squirrel about in front of his eyes. "I think I might not have a job anymore if I did that."

After a few moments of thinking, Kudo finally said, "I'll tell them I did it."

"What? No! No!" Heiji grabbed Kudo by the arm and dragged him into the shade where he could shout at him in peace. "You moron, how could you tell them that? Don't you know what happens in the movies?"

"That didn't seem to stop you," Kudo said sourly. "You're not supposed to become friends with vampires."

"Who's been reading the harlequin romance novels now? Are you going to commandeer a plane to fly to Italy so you can angst among ancient Western civilization? Take a narrow road to the north while reciting poetry?"

"Shut up!"

Heiji rolled his eyes. "Look, I'm a detective. I find truth, not justice. You can't go around making up facts as you please."

"Then what do you propose we do?" Kudo snapped. "You can't _tell_ them the truth."

"You're not thinking clearly. All I have to say is that we apprehended the criminal, but he killed himself as he jumped into the river. They can dredge it, but they won't find him. They'll put him on a watchlist, but they'll never find him, and another killing will never happen. Our job is technically finished. It's just a matter of details."

"That's…" Kudo seemed to deflate. "That makes sense. Are you sure you're okay with it though? You've never left a case open before. I could very easily escape from jail and disappear; it wouldn't matter."

"Why, Kudo, are you worried about me?" Heiji laughed. "I'll be fine. It's more important to me that I know what happened than that everyone else does."

"That sounds almost mature," Kudo said dryly.

Heiji beamed. "Thank you."

Kudo grimaced, like Heiji's happiness had personally offended him. Who knows, it might actually; he seemed to think Heiji was an idiot even though he _single-handedly_ solved this case. Kudo gestured for the squirrel. "Now give the thing to me."

"Oh, that's right," Heiji said, passing it over. "We have to…" He paused. "Can we arrest a squirrel?"

"Didn't you proclaim the squirrel under arrest when you slapped tiny handcuffs on it?" Kudo said, studying the squirrel's eyes.

"Don't be ridiculous, Kudo," Heiji scoffed. "We can't _actually_ arrest a squirrel."

Kudo sighed.

"Oi, Kudo…" Heiji realized something. "We won't have to… what do you do with a vampire _squirrel_? We can't keep it. Don't you have some kind of vampire master or whatever that could use a familiar?"

"Vampires don't have familiars, not even in lore," Kudo said automatically, but despite the banter, his eyes were grim. "We have to get rid of it."

Heiji frowned. "That…"

"I know. I'll do it."

Heiji narrowed his eyes at Kudo, who tried to stare back seriously. "Does it count as murder if it's already dead?" Heiji asked instead. "I don't believe in murdering criminals. Someone very smart once told me that driving a murderer to suicide is the same thing as being a murderer yourself."

Kudo looked away. "Oh, really? That person sounds very important to you," he murmured.

"He is," Heiji said. " _Is_ it murder, d'ya think?"

"No," Kudo said softly. "There's no soul in its eyes. It's just a body, a slave to its thirst for blood. It's no longer alive."

Heiji frowned. "Can you actually tell, or did you just make that up? It's a _squirrel_."

"Real squirrels can react to outside stimuli," Kudo snapped. "If you come near it, it will run away. Remain still long enough, and it will approach. This… _thing_ ," he said, shaking out the fat squirrel with distaste, "has done nothing but try to bite me, even though it must be absolutely _bloated_. It's just a body with a need to feed."

Heiji pursed his lips. "So disposal it is." He paused. "How, exactly, do you dispose of vampires?"

Kudo shifted uncomfortably. "It's… complicated."

Heiji raised an eyebrow to convey exactly what he thought of _that_ misdirection.

Kudo held his stare for a moment longer before he broke. With a sigh, he said, "Generally ripping off its head works. There's other ways, of course, but if you want foolproof, that's the way to go."

"Will it bleed?" Heiji asked curiously. "Actually, does blood even flow in your veins? How does it work, really, anyway?"

"Why, are you planning on dissecting me?" Kudo asked defensively.

Heiji held his hands up. "Dude, calm down. I just figured that if there was a specimen right here… might as well find out, right? We did cuff the thing, so it won't be able to escape."

Kudo wrinkled his nose distastefully, like he wanted to forget the memory entirely. "Somehow," he said. "But forgive me if I don't really want to see… the innards of something that resembles myself."

Heiji blinked. Oh, that's right, asking to see the vampire squirrel's innards could probably be construed as offensive, right, since they were both vampires, it was probably like asking to dissect Kudo's cousin.

"Don't misunderstand me; I don't have any affection towards the, uh, vampire-squirrel," Kudo said, guessing where Heiji's thoughts had gone. "Look, I'll tell you what I know about vampire physiology later, I just don't…"

"Oh my god," Heiji said, coming upon a marvelous realization. "You're _squeamish_."

"I am not!" Kudo said, but he had crossed his arms defensively, betraying how he totally was.

"I can rip its head off," Heiji offered. "It's just a squirrel; I bet I could do it. Or, we're at the docks, so there's bound to be something heavy around here we can squish it with."

If Kudo could throw up, he looked as if he were about to.

Heiji took pity on the poor soul. If vampires had souls. He'd have to ask later. "Here, give it back to me, and I'll take care of it somewhere you can't see, okay? I won't even tell you how I did it."

Kudo opened his mouth to argue, but Heiji cut him off by raising both his eyebrows and motioning for the squirrel again. Kudo gave up, and tossed the thing over.

"I feel kind of bad," Heiji said thoughtfully, raising the squirrel to his eyes. It did indeed seem to have gone completely mad, tiny fangs snapping at thin air, with none of the clear intelligence that squirrels typically seemed to exude. "I still don't like murder. But I guess starving it to death would be worse, huh?"

"Immensely," Kudo agreed.

"You know," Heiji said after a few more minutes of silence. "I'm not certain I really want to do this. There's really no good way to spin it, ya know? Murder's murder."

"Then what do you propose we do? You can't keep it as a pet." Kudo tugged at Heiji's elbow. "C'mon, give it to me. I've…. My hands are already bloody. I'll do it."

Heiji turned to Kudo with a sigh of relief, eyes lighter than they had been just a moment before. "Oh, okay. Then let's do it together."

"What?" Kudo said. "How did you even reach that conclusion—"

"I'll put it on the ground, and we can stomp on a count of three, okay? One, two—"

"Oh my god," Kudo said, although as he did as he was told. There was an awful crunch as the squirrel's neck shattered under their feet, and Heiji could feel it give one last twitch before falling limp. Kudo checked the vampire squirrel's pulse and nodded once. It was dead. For a second time.

"What was that about?" Kudo demanded, even as Heiji began walking away.

"Let's go talk to the chief," Heiji said instead. He shoved his hands in his pockets. He didn't want Kudo to see his hands shaking.

Kudo, detective as he was, noticed anyway. To his credit, he didn't say anything until they passed by a conveniently located coffee shop a few blocks away from the police station. "Hey, let's get something to drink," he said, tugging at Heiji's elbow to drag him inside.

"I'm _fine_ ," Heiji insisted.

Kudo rolled his eyes. "We've been up all night. You need caffeine before facing the chief," he said.

"Point," Heiji acquiesced.

"I'll pay," Kudo said, shoving Heiji out of line.

"How do you even have _money_?"

Kudo smiled for the first time that day, a small, wicked little glimmer, a flash of fang. "I have my ways."

"Oh god," Heiji realized.

"Do you like sweet things?" Kudo said, approaching the counter.

"Milk, no sugar."

Kudo returned shortly thereafter with two cups of coffee. He handed one over to Heiji, who immediately took a large gup, much to Kudo's horror. He raised his own cup to his lips and took a small sip, as if in protest. "What's the point of even adding milk? Do you even taste things? Do you have taste buds?"

"Pot, kettle," Heiji reminded.

Kudo scowled. "I can taste food," he said. "I just don't digest it. It passes through my body."

"That's one mystery solved," Heiji quipped.

They sat in silence for a little while, until Kudo apparently couldn't stand it any longer. "Why did you do it?" he said.

"What?" Heiji said, playing dumb.

Kudo wasn't having any of that. "The _squirrel_ ," Kudo said sharply. "I could have done it. If you hadn't insisted on playing the _hero_ —"

"I was _not_!" Heiji snapped. His fingers danced nervously on the edge of the table, and he reached back with his other hand to pull the brim of his cap forward. "I just…. I didn't want you to do it alone. That's not fair."

Kudo paused in his righteous anger, mouth snapping shut. He let out a deep breath, and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the blue of his irises had lost their metal edge. "Sorry," he said, voice much softer than it had been.

Then, very slowly, with intentioned, deliberate movements, he reached out with his hand and brushed his fingertips against the back of Heiji's hand. Mesmerized, as if he were stroking the softest of rabbit ears, Heiji turned his trembling hand over and curled his hand up to meet Kudo's, who laced their fingers together with a smile, thumb stroking over Heiji's pulse.

They sat together for a while as Kudo sipped at his coffee and Heiji stared at their interwoven fingers from under the brim of his hat.

Heiji spoke up as Kudo finished the last drops of his black coffee. "Well, that's how I know you're a vampire," he said, nodding slightly at Kudo's coffee cup. "Only corpses can choke down coffee black."

Kudo had to laugh. "Let's go," he said, pulling Heiji to his feet, still without releasing Heiji's hand. "Don't you have a police chief to put at ease?"

Heiji grinned brightly and resettled his cap backwards, letting go of Kudo's hand to sling an arm over his shoulder. "Yeah. Let's make some shit up."

~0~

The chief, after some wheedling, seemed to accept their haphazardly constructed story, although Kudo had to fill in the spaces where Heiji's explanation fell short of logic.

"Wait, wait, wait. You just said he used a sewing needle to kill his victims—where'd the gun come from?"

"Uh, yes," Heiji stammered. "Y-you see…"

Kudo sighed. "The needle is what he used to drain the blood. It was probably coated in poison, subduing the victims. After they fell unconscious, drained their blood through the holes he made with the needles. He caught onto us following him, so he probably began to carry the gun around."

"But part of what stumped Hattori-kun was that absolutely no traces of any drugs were found in any of the victims," the chief said suspiciously.

"It was a new compound that the perpetrator had invented," Kudo lied. "He had a vial on him."

The chief nodded. "I see."

He clearly didn't, but he also didn't press, and Kudo would take whatever blessings he could get.

"Yeah, yeah," Heiji said, latching onto Kudo's proffered proverbial hand. "And when we corned him, he turned tail and ran and jumped into the river, which is when we heard a gunshot."

Kudo rolled his eyes as the chief's eyebrows furrowed, slightly confused (what kind of perp has two teenaged boys at gunpoint and then decides the situation is so hopeless he has no choice but to commit suicide?), but ultimately accepted their story. "Alright then, if that's it. You boys can take off for the afternoon. Hattori-kun, I'll book you a train for tomorrow morning back to Osaka."

"Right, thanks," Heiji said, sighing as he thinks of the long and boring train-ride back where he'll doubtless be assaulted by another case that the police should be able to solve by themselves.

The chief turned to Kudo. "Kudo-kun, you comin' in tomorrow morning? We could use a bright boy like you, full-time. Won't even make you take the training for it. Waddaya say?"

Heiji turned to Kudo with a frown. Yeah, what would Kudo do? He obviously _likes_ solving cases, or he wouldn't have asked to join on, and he's brilliant so he'd be good at it. And he's already proven he can live amongst humans.

Kudo smiled slightly. "No can do. I've got to get home."

 _What?_

The chief slapped Kudo on the back. "Well, if you ever change your mind, you got my number. Take a well-deserved nap, boys."

"Thanks," they said, before walking out into the sunlight together.

Kudo popped his umbrella. "Are you sure you're a detective?" he ribbed absentmindedly as he adjusted his sleeves and umbrella for optimal coverage. "Can't you even keep a simple cover story straight?"

"Normally my stories are based on facts that actually exist!" Heiji protested.

"Sure," Kudo said. He walked off without waiting for Heiji.

"Oi, oi, oi!" Heiji ran to catch up. "Wait, are you seriously going to go back? What do you gotta do that's so urgent; twiddle your thumbs in your Bat-cave?"

"That's offensive," Kudo objected. "I have way more common sense than Batman. I would at the very least invest in a voice-changer."

"That's only in the movies. We don't know if he didn't have one in the comics, which is entirely different. And don't deflect!"

Kudo whirled around to roll his eyes at Heiji. "What did you expect? I only came down because I thought it looked like another vampire's work so I could help stop it—and as it turns out, it was a vampire _squirrel's_ work, and now that that's settled, there's no more reason for me to stay."

Kudo could jab at Heiji for the plot-holes in his story all he wanted, but Kudo's story made about just as much sense. Firstly, Kudo understood pop culture references like Batman, and had somehow heard of the human deaths happening in the city near his all-but-confirmed Bat-cave, meaning that he had connections, or just paid an awful lot of attention to humans. For a guy like Kudo, that could really only mean one of two things: he really cared about humans, or he was really bored. Heiji was willing to bet that both were true.

And secondly, Heiji could see that Kudo actually liked solving cases. The way his eyes lit up when he had (erroneously) deduced it was the vampire mafia, and the way his eyes had slid sideways for just a moment before declining the chief's offer, and most damning, the fact that he apparently had called in hot tips before, because, seriously? With eternity to live, who _does_ that?

Putting his hands on his hips, Heiji shot his best glare at Kudo. "You should know better than to lie to a detective," he said.

Kudo scoffed. "I'm not—"

In one smooth motion, Heiji ducked under Kudo's umbrella and slung an arm over his shoulder.

"What the hell!" Kudo said, trying to jostle Heiji's arm off, but couldn't do so without exposing himself to the sun.

"Why don'tcha just come with me, then?" Heiji said cheerfully, ignoring his struggling partner.

" _What_? I will _not_ be your little supernatural pet—"

"Now, now, calling yourself little isn't very nice. You'd be more like a live-in roommate. Get it? Live-in? Since you'd only come out at night?"

Kudo whirled around, eyes flashing. The motion caused Heiji to stumble out from under the umbrella, jostling its position and exposing Kudo's bare hand to the right rays. Kudo hissed in pain and snatched his hand up, but not before the skin at the surface began to fizzle and peel.

Heiji grabbed for Kudo's hand and carefully studied it under the shadows of Kudo's umbrella. "This looks like a bad third-degree burn already. You're not healing fast—I guess that's one thing about vampires, huh? Are you okay? Will you be okay?" Heiji knocked his forehead into Kudo's. "Oi, Kudo! Are you—"

"Yes!" Kudo shouted into Heiji's face, before withdrawing slightly. "Yes, I'm fine. Thank you. Just… don't, okay? This isn't supposed to happen."

"Harlequin novels," Heiji reminded.

"You can't pretend there wouldn't be problems," Kudo argued. "I could forge the proper papers to become your roommate, but then what? How would you even _explain_ me? How could I go on _any_ cases? You saw how difficult this one was. I can't even go anywhere without a fucking _umbrella_ , and that's only because the Tokyo PD _knows_ me."

Heiji rolled his eyes. "You're overthinking it. I'll get you gloves and hat, okay? There's tons of human diseases where the patient can't go out into the sun without getting severely sunburnt; that's the easiest thing to explain. Plus, eating would be easy! I'm young, and I can consider this the community service Kazuha is constantly bitching about."

"Do you even know what you're _offering_?" Kudo said desperately. "This is your _blood_. That's your _life force_ , you can't just—"

Heiji shook his head and sighed like he was particularly disappointed in a child who had gotten into the gifts on Christmas Eve. "Maybe this is a cultural difference. Giving a little blood these days is no big deal. We do have regular blood drives now, which I refuse to believe you don't know, since you all but admitted to stealing blood-bags. It's fine. My bone marrow is strong."

Kudo opened his mouth to argue again, but Heiji cut him off. "Dude, you're overthinking it. Did you have long talks with Anne Rice; is that what this is about?"

"W-Wha—we have met, but I don't see—"

"Harlequin."

Kudo shut his eyes, as if it would make Heiji and his migraine go away. " _Why_?"

Heiji turned Kudo's hand over and laced their fingers together. Holding up their intertwined hands, he said, "Dude, I like you, and I want to solve crime with you. Is that good enough?"

Kudo's expression twisted into one of an old soul suffering from abject back pain and knee problems. "I hate you."

Heiji grinned. "I'll take that as a yes."

* * *

aaand that's all! drop me a line, if you'd like!


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